I don't get why is there is a smattering of English in Japanese RPGs, either. In the Japanese version of Baten Kaitos, the whole intro was spoken in English, and a Japanese video of Dragon Quest 8 also showed the intro written in English. Status screen screenshots often show some English words, but mostly Japanese. It doesn't seem like it would help importers, as 95% of the game is still in Japanese. Anyone know why they do this?

There's a little blurb about the PS3 FF game at IGN - "Confirmed to be in development by Square Enix President Yoichi Wada, the first next-gen FF will likely be Final Fantasy XIII." The director of FF7 and X has also said that he is working on the game, although he didn't say what the game was either. I think it's most likely that it's FF7-2. A sequel would make sense as a culmination of all the FF spinoffs and the movie, and it would generate a lot of buzz for the PS3. SE has also said they are working on a next-gen MMORPG, which could be for the 360.

"As for Square-Enix...I don't remember them announcing anything other than support for the PS3"They did say that it was a Final Fantasy title that is planned for the PS3, and I'd be surprised if it isn't FF13 or the long-rumored FF7 sequel. XBox360's already long list of RPGs is definitely impressive, but I can't see SquareEnix risking any of their big franchises unless the 360 really takes off in Japan. I think the best they can hope for is ports of the FF games or the FF11 sequel. Of course, stranger things have happened - like Square and Enix merging.

"I think they are going to sell it at $399 or $499 here in the U.S."No offense to the guy that wrote this, but there's simply no way in the world Sony would put the PS3 out at $500 and $400 is really stretching the bounds of possibility, unless the 360 is $360. Sony depends on the mass-marketability of their system and its games, and $500 is not a mass-market price. It's just not going to happen.

"Nothing has been announced from Square-Enix beyond Final Fantasy XII and it will be interesting to see where they go with next-generation systems." At E3, Square Enix announced that they will produce a FF game for the PS3, presumably FF13 or FF7-2, with the 360 and Revolution most likely getting spin-off games. I think there's pretty much no chance of the main SquareEnix franchises (FF, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts) leaving the Playstation.

According to RPGamer three new XBox360 RPGs were unveiled at the XBox Summit in Japan. Most interesting is a new game from Tales Studio and Namco, although it won't be a Tales of... game. I don't know what Microsoft is doing to get all these RPGs on the 360, but it must be working.

Like Purge said, if you can wait a while, Fable : The Lost Chapters is going straight to Platinum Hits, so it will only be $20 when it comes out, and adds some new stuff to the game. Sudeki is fun, too, and has a very beautiful style to it as well. You might want to check out the Baldur's Gate : Dark Alliance games also. They're fun Diablo-sytle games, and should be cheap, although the first one may be hard to find.

I think that the continuous click only applies to the character you're currently controlling. If you switch characters, I would assume the AI would take over the character you just deselected and would continue attacking/casting/etc. You can still manage the party, but no matter who you're controlling, you're always doing something. I may be wrong, though.

"Are the randomly generated battles as frequent as, say, Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast?"It's a different kind of system. It works like Zelda or the Dark Alliance games. The levels and enemies are randomly generated, and then your single character fights them in real-time.

Gamespot has posted the full-length (7+ minutes) trailer for Rogue Galaxy here. It looks very cool and seems more like Dark Cloud 2 than the description made it sound.

"I'm not sure where you got the whole "added clicking" idea from. From the many videos I've seen of the gameplay, it still has the DS1 style of one click to do a task until done."I think that in DS2 you have to hold the mouse down to continue attacking an enemy, rather than just clicking on it once in the first game. There's no more clicking, but it's somewhat more interactive than just clicking once and then watching your character attack.

"Not to mention the combat absolutely sucked."I thought it was great. Even with the large amount of fighting, I never once got bored with it, and the combination of melee and ranged attacks worked great. They also balanced the difficulty well, since it remained a challenge even if you levelled up your weapons a lot. It was also a big improvement over the combat in Dark Cloud, which did indeed suck.

1Up has some details about the trailer for Rogue Galaxy here. The setting sounds very cool, but it looks like it's not going to be a Dark Cloud-type game, as you have a 3-member party.

Prince of Persia is coming to the DS - as a tactical strategy game with card-based battles :shock: It's certainly a bizarre extension of the series, but the combination of a tactical game with card battles could be very interesting. IGN has details and screenshots here.

Level 5, makers of the Dark Cloud games and Dragon Quest 8, have announced their new game - Rogue Galaxy. The only information available so far is that it will feature randomly-generated dungeons. The screenshot looks cel-shaded, although more detailed and realistic-looking than usual. I wish they'd do Dark Cloud 3, but hopefully, this game will be something similar. RPGamer has the news and screenshots.

Mantra skill gaining and levelling up are separate. Levelling up is done through the traditional Exp. points method. Your main character Serph, gets 3 points to distribute to their attributes (along with HP and MP increases), while the other party members' points are distibuted automatically based on what kind of character they are. Winning a battle gets you points towards completing your mantra and permanently gaining the skills associated with it. If you use devour skills, you master mantra much more quickly. You can have as many skills as you want, but only 6-8 (depending on your level) active at any one time.

DQ8, Radiata Stories, KH2, DDS2, Magna Carta, Wild ARMs Alter Code F, and Sigma Star Saga (GBA side-scrolling shooter/RPG) will all be first-day purchases for me. Gundam looks cool to me, but I've never had much interest in the whole "mech" genre, so I'll need more information. Makai Kingdom I'll probably buy sometime in the future, but I doubt I'll ever get Romancing Saga. There's also the Gamecube Fire Emblem game, which I will get when the price comes down, and Lunar, which (depending on reviews) I will probably buy a DS to play.

From playing the beta, it seems like they've fixed what was wrong with the first game. Pretty much all of the opinions of the beta I've seen have been positive, even those from people who didn't like the first game. It definitely looks like a winner.

Thanks. I've played enough of FF5 to know who Gilgamesh is, but I've heard he's a really interesting character, and didn't want to know his fate until playing FF5. I've got a 10-hour car ride tomorrow and next Wednesday, so I'll be getting a lot of GBA time in

I just got Final Fantasy Dawn of Souls for the GBA, and I read that the bonus dungeon(s) from either FF1 or FF2 contain either characters or enemies from other games in the FF series. If anyone's played them, are there any spoilers from other games in terms of the charcters that appear? Specifically, I still haven't gotten around to finishing FF5 or FF6, and need to know if any of extra stuff in Dawn of Souls would reveal any major spoilers (i.e. characters dying) in those games. I hope this makes sense - it's hard to explain

There's an RPG/side-scrolling space shooter due out next month called Sigma Star Saga. It plays like an action-RPG, but the random battles consist of side-scrolling space shooting. It sounds crazy, but it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.

Gratch - What level are your characters? I rarely get ambushed, and the only reason I could guess you're getting ambushed so often is if you're at a low level compared to the enemies. I think I was about level 20 when I finished the Citadel.

angrycoder - Once the atma bar fills up, you've mastered the mantra and have to pick a new one. Since you gain atma by devouring enemies, and Argilla at first refuses to do so, she won't gain atma. Just keep playing - you'll soon be able to change Serph and Heat's mantras and Argilla will have a change of heart.

About 110 total. If you count just games made in the last few years, about 70. I have 160 GB total, almost full, and all but whatever Windows takes up and 16 GB of music is devoted to games. Needless to say, I jump around between different games a lot

I'm planning to order Flipnic for PS2 from EBGames.com, but I'm going to be out of town next week, and will probably be gone when the game arrives. I'm having my mail held, so if they use regular mail, I'll be sure to get it, but their website says they also use FedEx and UPS. Anyone know what FedEx and UPS do when they try to deliver a package and no one is home?

Not that this does you any good now, but, after getting taken to the Citadel, you could have left the area, gone back to your base, and healed up/shopped/etc. I've only run into one area that I couldn't leave and go back to my base, and that was storyline-dictated.The combat can be challenging, but there are several things that make it easier. First, healing is cheap. Dia only costs about 3 MP, and even at level 24, still heals a big chunk of my characters' HP. Argilla should have a ton of MP, and MP restoring items are cheap. Also, areas with HP restoring stations are great for levelling-up without risk. If worse comes to worst, you can always use the large karma terminals to teleport back to the entrance, return to your base to shop/heal, and then come back.

At the point I am now, enemies are doing quite a bit of damage to my characters, and they occasionally die, but as long as I have plenty of MP restoring and Dis- items, I can pretty much heal to full strength after every battle if I have to. Also, money is easy to get. Enemies give quite a bit, and tracking down the Cells nets me several thousand for each one. So, while individual battles remain challenging, as long as you can survive each one, you'll be fine.

A word of warning, though. The last boss at the end of the Citadel can be very hard if you don't have the Void Expel spell. There's a great cut-scene after the battle, though, so it's definitely worth it. I hope you stick with it.

It's been awhile, but I don't remember having problems with clearing stuff out. There's some stuff you have to go back for, but you should be able to handle most things in an area before you move on to the next. There should pretty much always be a quest in your quest log that you can handle at your level. Again, it's been years since I played it, but I don't remember anything like what you're describing.

The trial quest on Manaan was one of my favorite moments in KoTOR. I loved the moral dilemma set up when you finally learned the truth. I thought about my final choice for quite awhile, more because it was an interesting choice than for what I was going to get game-wise.

I'm loving Jade Empire. It seems too much like KoTOR at first, but after leaving the first town, the game world really starts to show its uniqueness. It's also, at times, a very beautiful game - from the serenity of the sunset in Tien's Landing to the creepiness of the forest. It's a big step up from the mostly bland visuals of KoTOR.

In Sacred, the loot is randomized, the monster placement seems somewhat random, but the maps are premade. It doesn't have a hub setup like Diablo 2, as it's all one big, premade world.

"I do have one big question on Dungeon Siege two: One of the screen shots I saw for the skills screen for the fighter, all the skills were simply percentage increases to damge/hit/speed/etc. Does your fighter learn new attacks, or is he stuck with 'i hit things, and that's all I'll ever do' a la DS?"From what I've read, I think there are both. You can have melee powers that are different types of attacks, and you also have passive skills that boost your abilities. It looks kind of like WoW's skills and talents system.